An Evening of celebrations!! A triple GoodDeed milestone run combined with Earth Hour, Hackney Parks, digging, Stag Beetle loggers, 4K Run, Fitness session, social and ohh yes CAKE!!

Massive thank you to everyone who came out last night both to the group run and social!!

Huge shout out to Clair and Anne for notching up a magnificent 100 GoodDeeds each!! Amazing dedication, hard work and happy times!

To the cake makers thank you!! Cake fest 2019 was incredible!! ** Eva, Toyin, Emily and Mireille** you are all stars!!

Awesome to have so many people come along to the social! Hope you enjoyed it as much as me. Looking forward to our next milestone/ race celebration so we can do it all over again!

So the task, running out to Well Street Common in fingers crossed our last dark task for a while we met Bruce and the Hackney Parks crew. We first carried all the 30 logs over to the Stag Beetle hotel development area. Splitting into 2 (non competitive-ish) teams we got digging!

Having to get down to half the depth of the longest log this was no mean feat. Dario had everyone in awe as his silky digging skills came to the for and got team 1 down to the right depth in quick time. Some fine tuning with some excellent clumpage removing squared off the whole before the logs went in. I finely honed cluster of logs half buried in the ground was half art instillation and part rooting wood for the ** Stag Beetles** to feed and make a home.

With the other team catching up fast the soil went back in to complete the renovation and we were done!

With a little time we brought the fire and smashed out a running/body weight conditioning circuit to get us primed for the social ahead!

A quick run back and we were refuelling to the max!!

Great to have you along! Hope you can all make next week when we help ** Cordwainers Grow** saving a plants and trees from a community garden than is being forced to close.

Enjoy

Joel

13 Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to clear Shaklewell Primary schools crazy overgrown king size allotment.

Great to have you all along to a huge and very rewarding task with Shaklewell Primary School. With someone on the inside of the task this week big thanks to Rich for organising the collaboration between the school he works at and the GoodGym crew. Great to see so many school staff helping out this evening to dominate a big task!

Rich lead the 3k charge up to the school where we got stuck straight in and the prickly balls stuck to us!

Trees, weeds, bushes all had to go from this hill side patch. Clearing at a speedy rate into barrows, over fences into a rapidly filling skip.

The garden was clearing in preparation for the school children to have the chance to plant fruit and veg this spring as part of an exciting project for the school.

With high energy and productivity the skip was filled the allotment was cleared and we were all covered in sticky prickles which got on leggings, tops, shoes, hats and hair!!

With a caramel treat to give us a boost of energy we zipped back to base at a great pace really finishing the session off with some great running training!

Hope to see you all next week for our visit to Abney and Social to celebrate Emily’s 50th GoodDeed!!.

Have a great week

Joel

21 Hackney GoodGymers celebrated Toyin’s 50th GoodDeed by running 6k to Shorditch Park to create 300 metres of mulch pathway.

A steady start and an electrifyingly speedy finish to 50 GoodDeeds from Toyin who has really dominated GoodGym this year! Congratulations on your amazing hard work and enthusiasm for all things GoodGym!!

Setting off the a random route to Shorditch park (not that I took the wrong path in London Fields!!). Notching up some good distance as we wiggles our way to one of the most well used Green Spaces in the borough.

With 3k under our belts we met Park Ranger Vince who had the tools all laid out and probably the biggest mulch pile in London ready for us to attack!

Shovelers, rakers and Wheelbarrowing Ninjas were all ready for action to help Hackney Parks keep our Green Spaces useable in wet weather for the community.

The Ninja’s were flying tonight speeding down the 200 raceway to tip the mulch at super speed! The takers were precise and efficient keeping the mulch thick and aligned while the shovelers provided the smooth and swift supply of mulch!!

40 minutes and 300 metres on mulch laid finishing in the perfect spot with the whole section complete!

With the tools loaded back onto the van we zipped off for a water side run down the canal back to base! Firing up the speed on the last 1.5k great to see everyone working hard all the way back to base!!

Think it was the added incentive of the post run Social that spurred us on! Thanks for the 16 who came along for a Thai refuel!!

See you next week for a visit to Shaklewell Primary to get their school garden on track!

Smooth Running

Joel